


We May Never Pass This Way

by aforallyyyyyyx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Dimension Travel, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Regulus Black Lives, Storms, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Time Travel, Veil of Death (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 03:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18842428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aforallyyyyyyx/pseuds/aforallyyyyyyx
Summary: The first outlines of an old memory emerged in Sirius’s mind. Like breath misting on a cold glass. He remembered the strange dream he had, before he woke up in the mud, straight from duelling Bellatrix and fighting in the Death Room, of a place he didn’t know but he remembered, he remembered a pub, and a storm in the 1960s, coming to see Alphard when he was about seven, and of some local muggles- what had that man said? Something about a place where the spirit world comes close. How Skye was a thin place.He just never expected to see the Isles again, after Azkaban, never mind his Uncle Alphard or his little brother Regulus... But that's the Other Side, so they say.It was the year 1966 and the Wizarding World he knew was gone. Some things seemed the same- like James and the Potters, they seemed normal, as normal as a six year old James Potter could have really been. But things were different. It was all different, and it terrified him- his mother was dead already, for one. And also, if Sirius could just stop forgetting about the other world and the way things went that time, that'd be just great.(Dimension-Travel AU)





	1. Chapter 1

_And there was a look of mingled fear and surprise on Sirius’s wasted, once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil, which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind and then fell back into place..._

* * *

The memories hit him, so fast and so hard that he doubled over from all of the pain. The first image he could make out was the weakest, a mere shadow in his mind, so blurry and made of shapes that he was barely sure it had been _real_.

His uncle taking him and his brother by the hand on a beach (had they been to a beach?); kneeling at the sieve; Alphard’s seaside kitchen at twelve; and then a different scene, being pulled up by his arm as he stood with his brother in a ballroom; then his mother’s pasty white face; and then _pain, pain, pain_ as his mother gave him a  _Crucio,_ staring stonily down at him as he screamed himself hoarse, in the lounge, his father’s hands tightening into fists, if Sirius could see him, he was watching his son convulse on the ground...

And then there was more _pain, pain, pain_ as Sirius felt it. The face of his brother, who he hadn’t thought about in years, had cried. There were more memories filtering through now, of a place he didn’t know but he remembered, he remembered a pub, and a storm in the 1960s, coming to see Alphard when he was about eight, and of some local muggles- what had that man said? Something about a place where the spirit world comes close. How Skye was a _thin_ place. He and Reg were there in the winter, and he could still see the mist and ice swirling around them, and the sucking glops of mud, and the invisible lighthouse. He remembered the cold and rain and wind in Azkaban, of being trapped in the North Sea. He recalled looking for stones with Alphard, not so far away.

And then...

And then he hissed, because he was now standing in soppy, wet, _freezing_ mud. Water was pooling around his shins, and Sirius nearly stumbled. He squinted around. He felt so disoriented he felt like he could almost be back there, swimming to shore as Padfoot, but he was _human,_ he was standing in _mud._ Where would all the mud have come from? He could still see the mist and ice swirling around him, and the thick mud, it was like wet cement.

He compared what he was feeling right now to where he had been, and with how little he could see; he was hunched against an incredibly bitter wind, with mud dragging him down. And he couldn’t see. Everything was like ice in the black.

_Is this the other side of the veil?_

He was hearing faint screams somewhere around him in the darkness, he swam toward it, swam toward the noise, but grew confused when it fell silent; when he broke the surface, he couldn’t tell whose voice it was, or even if it was a combination of voices. Could it be?

Someone was calling for him, pleading for him. But could he see them?

_Where am I? Scotland?_

He could make out the cold rocks of Salmadair, a lighter grey in the general black. Only how he knew it was Salmadair he couldn’t understand, it was just a guess. If it was true, he was hearing voices, the voices must be on Salmadair, he just had to reach them and they would all get back to the mainland. At this point, he couldn’t tell whether he was hunched against the gales or escaping from Azkaban. 

The voices, though, they had fallen silent. Gazing into the chains of rain, he thought that he could have actually made out a figure- maybe two figures, an adult and a child. Both of them could have been hunched against the ferocious wind, like he was. But why would an adult and a child be out here, walking across these dreadful muds, in the storm, in pre-dawn darkness?

He tried to get to them. The cold dripped down his neck; the mist and rain grew denser as he waded out onto the gaping, endless mudflats. _Where the hell am I?_ He looked to his left, and saw more black shapes. Boats, perhaps. But then the wind howled, in the firs, and it sounded like someone was screaming, maybe a dog was howling. He swore he saw a smear of movement, just one figure, rather small, moving in the greyness. Then the movement stopped. And it was gone. And it gave him an idea.

Sirius tried to transform. He could have better vision as a dog, here, in the mudflats of the isles, but he couldn’t find the strength. He searched for a wand, but couldn’t find one in his pockets- and he listened as the wind howled once more. No, no, no...

_Sirius Sirius Sirius._

Carried on the wind.

_Sirius._

Someone was calling to him, like before. Only this time, he could hear enough to make out his name. He strained to see something, anything, in the darkness. The mist was whirling in places, like flaws in ice.

“Hello?” He shouted himself hoarse; at least he thought he had, because whatever sound that had just come out of him did not sound like him at all. “HELLO?”

He was shouting into the void. But he still heard the voice.

_Sirius._

“I’m here!” He tried again, “I’m still here!”

He only dared made noise because of the veil- he’d fallen through.

There was a sudden sound of splashing. Sirius would have jumped at the scare, but his feet were trapped in mud. It had suddenly occurred to him that he couldn’t move, he absolutely couldn’t move.

“Help me, I think I- I'm stuck,” he cried, unable to tell why this was feeling like such an out-of-body experience. His eyes felt strained, as if he’d been staring at something very bright for a very long time, even though he was in near darkness. And he was shaking like mad, perhaps worse than after his escape from Azkaban _. Maybe I’m drunk and alone back at Grimmauld Place._ _I hope I’m drunk and alone at Grimmauld Place._ But he’d fallen through? Why would he feel so cold, otherwise?

“Sirius?” A bright wand was suddenly in front of his face, an adult sounding from above him, “Sirius, thank  _Merlin._ ”

 Sirius squinted through the beam of light, as tight arms found themselves around him, unknown arms, unfamiliar arms, pulling him out of the thick mud.

It was a man’s face. He blinked quickly, assuming that this was all a hallucination- but then became terrified, because if this wasn’t...

His Uncle Alphard was standing in front of him, his wand-arm out in front of him, and there was a tiny boy on his back. His younger brother Regulus’s pale, terrified face peered down at him, and as Sirius absorbed this information, he was frozen as he stared back at the both of them. This couldn’t be real. It _couldn’t_ be real.

Alphard moved to take his hand as he turned around, hunched against the winds, but Sirius pulled his hand back. “N- _no_ ,” He couldn’t find anything else in him to stop him from crying, or gasping, or hyperventilating.

“Just a bit further, son,” Alphard encouraged, “You can make it.”

He didn’t remember this. He hiccoughed and, shivering, stood his ground in the mud. He couldn’t go with them. It wasn’t Alphard, it wasn’t his little brother, _you died,_ he was alone and terrified in his bedroom in London, _he fell through_ , but someone must have pulled him out, he was nowhere near the isles and their terrifying storms, this would not _break_ him.

_You died you died you died you died..._

“ _Merlin_ , Sirius,” His uncle’s voice was cutting through in his panic, through the darkness, through the howling wind; then, he felt himself being lifted up in Alphard’s arms, as his younger brother was dislodged from his back. He protested at first, breathing harder than before, sobbing and hiccoughing and burying his face into Alphard’s shoulder as they moved through the thick bog.

_I died I died I died I died I died..._

After a while, Sirius felt his uncle begin to tire, breathing hard and grunting. He began to grow scared. He felt disassociated with this man he saw in his memories- and cried and cried, remembering Bellatrix’s red light, the Dementors, and a man he didn’t know but was sure he was his best friend. _He was dead he was dead he was dead..._

“You alright boys?” Alphard shouted, over the howling of the wind, and as he heard his little brother’s voice- he sounded like a baby, a tiny child at this point, Sirius cried harder.

“Yeah,” Regulus said, from his position in Alphard’s arms- Sirius was on his back.

“Good,” Alphard said quietly in return, Sirius almost couldn’t hear it. “We’re almost there, promise.”

They were then almost blown sideways.

Regulus’s face peered back at Sirius, scared. Sirius pressed his face into Alphard’s cloak, begging for this to be over.

What had he done, to deserve this torture from his own mind? Had he lost it? They might have caught him, he might have been back in Azkaban. He had far worse memories than this. _“Come on, you can do better than that!” he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room._

He closed his eyes. He could feel his uncle’s lungs inflating more with every breath, but Alphard hadn’t yet put him down in the mud. Sirius himself was shivering too, against him, and he was terrified because he was smaller than Uncle Alphard, small enough to fit on his back, when he knew that he wasn’t. He had to be dead. Bellatrix must have killed him.

_Oh, Harry..._

He could transform. He could transform and be free of this, free of them, they wouldn’t ever get to where they were going. He could, he could get back to Harry, get back to the battle, and... and...

Where were the others? If this was death, where were the others?

James? Lily? Why wouldn’t they be here?

_Why are Alphard and Regulus..._ _I don’t... I..._

“Sirius, please,” pleaded Alphard, as Sirius blinked, “Please, please stop crying, we’re almost there, promise.”

_I died I died I died I died I died..._

Only he couldn’t stop, until...

The fog split open, only for a moment.

There. That was definitely the lighthouse that Sirius remembered from his childhood, remembered from coming here to visit Uncle Alphard when he was young. And it was not far away. They must have almost gotten around Salmadair. Once they made it to the causeway, it would be easier...

His uncle clambered, painfully, to the top of the rock, where the mist was even thicker. But now a real gleam of light showed them the way. The lighthouse was truly close: Alphard was almost running up the causeway, the mud had yielded to rocks and pebbles; the wind was still driving and the rain was still intense, but the beam of the lighthouse displayed the route, every ten seconds.

_Up, up, up._

There. They were on the island. There were lights glimmering, in Alphard’s cottage. In his bedroom? Or the living room, where Sirius and Regulus slept when they made it up here?

Alphard crouched against the wet to let Sirius down and sprinted up the once heathery path, and Sirius was now back on his own feet. He followed, not knowing what else to do.

The kitchen door of the cottage was open, flapping hysterically in the brutal wind. Why had Alphard left the door open? In this storm?

Sirius stepped over the threshold, half expecting something to happen as he entered the kitchen. The floor was wet, there was water everywhere. He was holding onto Alphard’s wand, its light showed why: a huge gash in the dining-room ceiling, a great beam of timber protruding.

Regulus stood next to him, smaller but not much shorter. He looked horrified. Sirius couldn’t quite believe that he was even there.

Alphard was shouting against the wind that boomed outside, shouting for someone, but who?

“Walburga! Orion! Walburga! It’s me!” Sirius’s heart dropped to his stomach as he anticipated who he might see next emerge out of the gloom.

Were all families forced to be reunited in death? Were his parents-

“Walburga! Orion!”

Nothing. No one answered. The house was empty. They had gone? Did that explain the two figures he’d maybe seen on the mudflats? An adult and a child? If there were three, excluding him, where could they have gone?

“Orion!” Alphard was still trying, still trying to find them. “Walburga!”

Again, nothing. What about the bedroom? That’s where Sirius had seen the light. He watched as Alphard made that connection too, followed him in abject horror, the image or the ghost of his brother holding his hand, as he half-expected to see his father there, standing still, eyes flickering dangerously, waiting for them to return. Waiting for them to come _home_.

Alphard kicked open the bedroom door, and stared, from bed to chair, and from wall to wall. Sirius and Regulus were just behind him.

The room was empty. The light was on, and the bedding was disturbed. But whoever had been here had recently left.

The house was empty. They’d gone. And it made no sense.

 _Where am I?_ Sirius briefly wondered. Was he really dead? He hoped, rather, that this was all a hallucination. There were potions that created these kinds of visions, that much he knew. Maybe Snape had poisoned him. _Maybe not._

“What do we do, Uncle Alphie? What do we do?” Regulus was crying. He couldn’t be more than six, really, and pressed close to Sirius as the wind howled.

The winds could be reaching more than a hundred kilometres an hour out there. Sirius remembered that his Uncle Alphard didn’t have a Floo, too paranoid. It was why he lived all the way up here. When Sirius and Regulus always came to visit him, they always Flooed to a nearby pub, across the loch. And Alphard was always there to greet him, with his dingy.

Sirius was just sad. _This isn’t real,_ he thought, dismayed. _This isn’t real._

Why would their parents be out here, anyway? He could recall maybe one instance where they bothered to visit with them, Sirius had been eight... was he supposed to be eight now, in this memory?

Alphard was searching the house, turning over things to look for clues. But then the wind became too much. Sirius heard a crashing noise, from the far side of the cottage.

“In here, boys,” Alphard ushered them down the stairs and into the cellar- it was the only room without a window. He forced them down to the floor, so far, it wasn’t wet, but Sirius worried it would be. He went back up the stairs to transfigure the wood door into metal, which would hopefully keep any debris out.

Sirius was shivering and his teeth were chattering. Alphard found a blanket on a shelf and, after shaking it somewhat away from them, wrapped it around the boys. Sirius all of a sudden felt very small, and not sure what to believe.

He remembered the storm, faintly, but he didn’t remember ever getting lost on the mudflats. He remembered the storm, but he didn’t remember his parents being there or getting lost halfway through.

Regulus had rested his head on his shoulder. Sirius’s eyes were watery again as he fully took in his surroundings. He was in his Uncle Alphard’s cellar, underground, hopefully safe from the storm. He would find out if he was really dead or hallucinating in a moment, but for now he could just sit here, huddled for warmth.

He was still shivering about twenty minutes later.

“Are you alright, Sirius?” Alphard asked him, concerned, from his beside them, on the opposite wall. He had found a blanket of his own.

Sirius looked at him in confusion and blinked. “F-fine.”

“You look like you’re feeling weak and shaky,” Alphard frowned, “Where’d you leave your potion?”

Sirius frowned in confusion. His question of “What potion?” was drowned out by a large banging noise. Regulus flinched into his side, more rain poured down above the house.

“Did you leave it in the bedroom?” Alphard asked, his eyes moving to stare at the door to the above, “I can-”

Regulus was staring at him, too.

“Sorry, potion? What potion?” Sirius asked, a frown of his own on his face, “And... I g-guess?”

Alphard shook his head violently. “Your _Blood Replenishing_ ,” He emphasized, “You must have left it somewhere. Honestly, you two are hopeless. I have some extra stored down here, but-”

His eyes flickered to the shelves, which looked like a scary mess of different bottles and potions- all except one, which was labelled with yellow. And then, it suddenly dawned on Sirius _._

Alphard was already getting up and pouring some into a dusty cup. Sirius frowned, watching him, and reeled back when he came toward them with the cup. He half-expected him to go for Regulus, but as his uncle came toward him, Sirius’s frown deepened. This was _wrong._

“Wait- don’t want-” Sirius said, attempting to get up, and as Alphard stopped, concerned, he shook his head wildly. “Don’t _need_ \- Mmpf-”

“Sirius?” Alphard asked.

_This isn’t right. Why is Alphard trying to give me- but Regulus- it was Reg who-_

“No,” Sirius said, when Alphard attempted to approach him again, “No, I don’t need- I’m fine, really!”

“Sirius,” Alphard looked really concerned now. “Sirius, look at me.”

Sirius didn’t want to. “I-” He whispered, “I-”

“Listen to me,” said Alphard, “Sirius, what’s making you so afraid? Is it the storm?” At that, there was another crash from above- Sirius winced, but it wasn’t just that. It was that his Uncle Alphard was trying to give him a potion, and he didn’t understand what it was, because it didn’t look anything like normal Blood Replenishing. In fact, it looked more like Reg’s old potion from when he was ill... _I’m not ill. Regulus and Alphard are- were, but..._

He didn’t feel ultimately in control of his body when he felt himself give a small nod.

“And I want you to tell me honestly. Do you feel ill anywhere?”

Sirius thought for a moment. “N-no,” he said, in slight hesitation. “J-just _cold_.”

Alphard nodded his head, but it didn’t look like he quite believed him. “Do you mind if I-” He moved to roll up Sirius’s sleeve, which was still sopping wet.

Sirius moved back. Alphard raised his hands, one of which still held the cup.

“I’m not going to give you anything. Not yet,” Alphard promised, “But I just want to check to make sure you’re not hiding anything.”

Sirius immediately began to protest. “Why would I-”

Alphard unrolled his sleeve, and what Sirius saw there, beside an unusually tiny looking arm, was _red_. And it greatly shocked him. He looked at Alphard, who was examining the area around his elbow, in between his forearm and upper arm, with slight disappointment.

“Sirius...” He said, not really knowing what to say.

“I swear I didn’t notice,” Sirius said at once, his eyes wide. This... this looked bad. This looked exactly like Reg’s disease, which he had to deal with his entire life, not Sirius. Sirius never had it. Ever. It was always Reg, always Reg.

“I... I swear,” Sirius said again, but Alphard had already moved, had switched the cup for _something else,_ was already wiping down his upper arm, giving him absolutely no time to prepare for a poke and- _ow_!

“Is Sirius going to be okay?” came Regulus’s little voice from across the room, and Sirius turned to look at him, huddled in the blankets.

“I’ll be fine, Reg,” Sirius said, deciding to do whatever anyone told him from now on- maybe it would help him get out of this weird vision or state of limbo faster, because this _couldn’t_ be real. _Where the hell am I?_

“What about mum and dad?” Regulus asked again, and Sirius had no idea how to answer. He turned to his uncle, who was readying another syringe, having thrown the first one out. This one looked bigger than all the others, was it really bigger than all the others?

“I’m sure they... I’m sure they made it to the mainland.” Alphard smiled grimly, but Regulus could not see his face, so he never found out. Sirius, though, was frowning. “We’ll see them tomorrow.”

“How do you think they got there?” Sirius wondered, “They couldn’t- they couldn’t take a boat, could they? Ow, ow, ow!” His uncle had stuck the syringe in his arm.

“Sorry, son, but I’m going to have to keep giving these to you,” Alphard said quietly, “Until we run out of needles, at least. Let’s hope the storm breaks, because I’d rather send you to St. Mungo’s.”

“N-no, I don’t need-”

“Sirius.”

He fell silent.

Alphard disposed of the last syringe and crouched down to his level- Merlin, did Sirius feel short.

Alphard looked like he wanted to say something else, but six-year-old Regulus was watching them. He just smiled thinly. “Try to get some sleep, Sirius. I’ll wake you up to check on your arm. Now, go back to the corner with Regulus, okay?”

And now he was being treated like a child.

Sirius went back over to Regulus, who was staring silently at him through big eyes. He didn’t know what kind of strange world he’d ended up in, but seeing Reg again, real or not, was a gift in itself, he supposed.

And it was an even better gift, he thought, when Regulus snuggled up beside him, his little body fitting with his. Sirius tried to fall asleep there, on the wooden floor, feeling somewhat content, if not for the roaring of the wind and thunder.

A particularly loud banging sound woke him, and he wasn’t sure how long it had been. But Regulus was awake, with his arms wrapped around his side, crying. _Where am I?_

His Uncle Alphard was sitting on top of a crate. “It’s only been about twenty minutes,” he said.

Sirius sighed. He held Regulus close, and wished for the storm to be over.

 

* * *

 

When he awoke next, he didn’t hear as much howling or crashing from the wind. Regulus was still pressed up against him, and had Sirius been uncertain that he’d actually fallen asleep, he wouldn’t have believed he was really in another world. None of this made sense. Could a wizard sleep if he was dead? Could a wizard sleep if he was hallucinating? Could a wizard sleep if he was dreaming?

His tiny six or seven-year-old brother was still next to him. His Uncle Alphard, looking worn, was across the room in the cottage’s cellar. Everything was just as he remembered it to be, with once crucial detail wrong. Sirius was never _ill_. If that wrong, then someone had made a fatal error. And if no one was doing this, what else could be different and unsettling about this strange world? And could he escape?

The thought was on his mind for the next several hours, when Alphard went upstairs to check on the storm. It was supposed to be light out, he said, and the winds had died down a bit. Alphard came back downstairs for them after that and, looking worried, ushered him and Regulus upstairs.

The wind was ferocious, still. Dead leaves, slips of seaweed, knots of dead bracken were flying through the cold dark air. Much like last night, the lighthouse looks diminished by the booming noise of the wind. Its flickering light was no longer any comfort. It was barely light out.

Alphard slipped another blanket around the both of them, but it was more like a cloak, anyway. Regulus and Sirius stood watching him as he went outside to strengthen the doors, then came back in. He siphoned up all the water on the floor with his wand, did his best to repair the wooden beam that had fallen, creating a hole in the dining room ceiling. When the roof was repaired by magic, the horrible moaning and howling was muffled, but still audible.

“Uncle Alphie, I’m frightened.”

Regulus was standing next to Sirius but he looked around at the house in fear.

“The wind is so noisy, Alphie.”

Uncle Alphard came closer. “It’s only a storm, Regulus,” he said, waving his wand at the windows- three had broken. The broken glass swirled around to repair themselves. When the house looked mostly okay, he turned to them. “We’ve just got to sit it out a bit longer, hmm? We’ll be fine. We’ve got food and I found some firewood. It will be like an adventure. Now, why don’t you both go back down to the cellar?”

“Are Mother and Father going to come back to help?”

“Not tonight, son, but maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”

Alphard was telling them lies, now. Sirius could tell that Alphard really had no idea where Orion and Walburga were, if they were even here, in this strange world.

“But last night you said-”

There was another distinct banging sound. As if someone was screaming _let me in let me in let me in,_ pounding on the door. But it wasn’t, it was just the wind.

Sirius moved closer to the kitchen window, gazing at the dreary flats toward Broadford, but it was pointless. In the fog and darkness, he could have been staring into space: a deep grey saddening void. Without stars.

He began to feel extremely unsettled.

Alphard gave them sandwiches and told them to go eat them downstairs. Sirius didn’t like the idea of going back down into the dark cellar, but the wind was much louder up here.

Regulus followed him down. They ate in silence. Alphard came down later.

They waited it out.

 

* * *

 

When they came upstairs next, it was light out. The wind still whirled, but it had slowed considerably. Alphard fastened coats on the both of them and told them that they were going to get on a boat to the mainland, as mainland as mainland could get on Skye. Regulus asked if their parents were going to be there. Sirius hoped they wouldn’t be.

Alphard avoided the question, and focused on pulling his old dingy from behind the cottage. The tide had completely come in now, and Sirius could see the icy cold water, moving with the gales. He didn’t like the look of it, and after swimming from Azkaban to the mainland as a dog, he was less inclined. It had been freezing.

Alphard helped them into the boat, picking up Regulus and putting him inside, and then lifting Sirius, which Sirius hadn’t expected, stumbling when Alphard put him down. Alphard had a pair of trunks inside the dingy, forcing Sirius to wonder where exactly they were going.

The water was rough, and Regulus and Sirius shivered inside of the boat as Alphard tapped it with his wand, giving them a little bit of help. Regulus looked frightened. He shut his eyes and pressed against Sirius, who couldn’t stop looking over the side as the boat rocked back and forth. When they finally anchored, even Sirius was shaking. He didn’t like being on the open sea any longer than necessary, not after Azkaban.

“You alright, boys?” His uncle asked them, and it was only yesterday that they’d been walking across the mudflats, Alphard carrying them both. Sirius nodded, his teeth chattering. It was biting out. Alphard then got out to tie them up, lifting Regulus and helping Sirius out of the dingy. When he was on his own two feet, he frowned at the pier at Broadford- he remembered a scene like this, in his early childhood. They could be almost sacred in his memory. He could remember stories Alphard used to tell him word for word, happy holidays and scary fables on the west shores of the Sound of Sleat. Warm fires in the living room with his brother and his cousin Cissy. His parents not being there. Bellatrix and Andromeda at school. The kids happy. Listening to the old tales from their ex-pat Londoner uncle. _The bonny road which winds around the fernie brae- ach, that’s the road to death and heaven, the auld place of the fairies..._ He remembered looking for faeries with Cissy, on the beach and on the flats. Cissy never liked the mud though. And they never found any.

He at least remembered, on top of everything else, that no one was supposed to go on the flats. And somehow, that’s where he’d ended up last night, at night, when you really weren’t supposed to go. _The tide will come in, cold and lethal: you’d drown, Sirius..._

How did he end up there?

How did he end up here? Back in this old world?

Regulus was nudging him. Alphard was several feet ahead, walking on the path toward an old pub. Sirius hurried ahead, and his brother was right beside him. There were  _muggles_ here, muggle cars. Branches and bracken covered the car park, the wind swirling dead leaves around them.

They followed their uncle into the pub. It looked like the pinnacle of an old, stained, fisherman’s bar, with muddy carpeted floor, and wooden tables. Sirius might remember coming here before, as a child, but his memory was so fuzzy it was shapes and blurs.

He glanced across to the corner, where Alphard was talking to some muggles. Five muggles- men, of varying ages and virtually identical jumpers, sat at the largest round wooden table. The pub was otherwise deserted. The men were silent as they squinted back at Alphard over their pints.

Then they turned to each other, and started talking again. In a very foreign language.

Sirius tried not to gawp as he came closer to stand behind Alphard, as his uncle started talking to the muggles again. “My nephews,” He was saying. “We were looking for their parents, lost them night before last, in the storm. Have you seen them around here? Very unfriendly folk?”

The men eyed the boys. “Bit young t’be camping in’tha, innit?” One of them said.

“Yes, thanks,” said Alphard.

They weren’t going to be any help. Alphard ushered them to a table and ordered something to eat for Reg. Sirius said that he wasn’t hungry, although he wanted a sip of his uncle’s scotch, if he could.

“Where’s Mum and Dad?” Reggie said, peering around the pub, “You said they’d be here. And what language were they speaking?”

“Gaelic. But I _bet_ you they were speaking English before we walked in. They do it as a sort of joke, to wind up the incomers,” said Alphard. “And I dunno where your mum and dad are. They may have tried to apparate in the storm, beats me why. Every good wizard knows that ‘it’s a splinch you’ve earned, if the weather takes a turn!’”

The group of men had finished their pints and looked to be heading out, maybe back to work. One of them, one of the younger looking ones, with ginger hair and a beard, came over to them.

“You’ migh’ wanna check w’the blokes d’own near Camuscross,” The man said to Alphard, “Migh’ leave the kids tho’, heard itsa bad scene.”

“You mean they’ve found someone,” Alphard was frowning. “That’s what I heard your mate say before. Do you know what they looked like?”

Sirius was trying very hard to listen in, but it was harder when Alphard stood up to go talk to the man over by the bar.

“A wummin, flo’tin in tha tide-”

“Thank you very much,” Alphard was saying, and Sirius frowned. Then, their uncle came back over to them.

“Right,” He said, “Right, I’m going to go have a look in Camuscross. You boys stay here in the pub, you can get what you want, just don’t leave, alright?”

His eyes lingered on Sirius, who was frowning very unhappily. Then, he left, after having a word with the barmaid.

“What d’you think that was all about?” asked Regulus, his big eyes narrow as he watched Alphard leave the pub.

“I think they found someone,” Sirius said, without really thinking, “I think they found someone who was dead. In the tide. And Alphard’s gone off to make sure it’s not Mother.”

Regulus stared back at him, his lower lip wobbly. Then, he opened his mouth, and with some hesitance, said, “Why did you go out on the mudflats, Siri?”

Sirius looked off to the side. He couldn’t really answer him. Why had he been out there, all alone at night? He didn’t know, or couldn’t remember. _If I found out where I was, that’d be great. But now I’m sitting in a haunted fisherman’s pub with the ghost of my brother sitting in the opposite seat._

“I don’t know,” he said, “It was kind of like... I dunno, I was in a trance? And then I woke up and I was stuck out there, stuck in the mud.”

His little brother was frowning.

“When did you last see Mum and Dad, Reg?” Sirius decided to ask his brother a question instead, maybe it would help him get out of this strange place, with its strange muggles and evil gales.

“The night you went out on the flats,” Reg said, “Da’ came back and said he’d been looking for you, an’ Alphie thought he might’ve heard someone out on the flats, but the wind was really loud. An’ Mummy was gone, Da’ didn’t know where she went. But, but then we came back, Siri, and Daddy an’ Mummy weren’t there?”

His little brother sounded like he was more six than seven. Maybe five. Sirius didn’t know what year it was, or if time even ran in this stupid place. He looked young enough, all long hair and baby fat.

“When did you see Mum before then?” Sirius said, “And why did father go out on the mudflats?”

“No, Da’ came back on the boat,” answered Reg, “He said he was comin’ back from the pub, that’s why Alphie wanted to look here. An’ Mummy, I saw her...”

Sirius watched as his brother broke off, his eyes flickering. Scared?

“I saw you and Daddy go with her later, an’ after that it was just me and Alphie,” Reg said, “Only Alphie didn’t know ‘cause he was asleep, an’ when he woke up, he asked me where you were, an’ I said I didn’t know, so me and Alphie went to the flats to look.”

Sirius was frowning at his brother. He ignored the troubled syntax, because his brother was young, but none of this was adding up. He _had_ ended up on the flats. He did get stuck in the mud. Alphard and Regulus came to save him. But their parents were curiously absent. And according to that ginger fellow who’d left the pub just now, there was a body on the beach somewhere south of here.

His mother?

He remembered none of this. This must be some other world, some horrible vision. Or maybe it was another woman washed up on the beach, and their parents were still prowling Grimmauld Place in London, and he couldn’t wake up. Maybe his old life had been a dream. Harry, Azkaban, James, Lily, the Marauders, all of it. Even Padfoot was just a faint shape in his memory, now. Battling Bellatrix, Voldemort... eating rats in Hogsmeade...

None of it. He was trying to grasp for their faces, in his mind. Wire glasses, green eyes, brown eyes, they were melding together. A big black dog. A sallow-faced, screaming woman in a portrait, coupled with a big hand leading him through mud, as he asked, _“In the dark? It’s too dark, Mummy.”_ And this woman, this woman, _“That’s alright, darling, I have my wand.” “But the wind? And the dark an’ everything?”_

The first outlines of an old memory emerged in Sirius’s mind. Like breath misting on a cold glass. He remembered the strange dream he had, before he woke up in the mud, straight from duelling Bellatrix and fighting in the Death Room, of a place he didn’t know but he remembered, he remembered a pub, and a storm in the 1960s, coming to see Alphard when he was about eight, and of some local muggles- what had that man said? Something about a place where the spirit world comes close. How Skye was a _thin_ place. He remembered his mother pushing him into the hurling rain, straight into the black and howling wind. He thought of her wand, pushing into his back, maybe the sound of his name- _Sirius Sirius Sirius Sirius-_ carried on the wind. He remembered her touch on the flats and then when he turned around, it was gone. _She_ was gone. He remembered screaming.

She drowned him?

He had started to struggle through the mud, thought that maybe, he could have actually made out a figure- maybe two figures, an adult and a child. Both of them could have been hunched against the ferocious wind, like he had. But why would an adult and a child have been out there, walking across the dreadful muds, in the storm, in pre-dawn darkness? The child had to be him. The memory was a mere shadow in his mind, so blurry and made of shapes that he was barely sure it had been real. It was him and his mother that were walking across the flats.

His eyes were angry, wet, and frightened. Regulus was prodding him.

“Sirius?” He asked. He looked sad, but he wasn’t crying. “Sirius?”

Sirius didn’t answer him. He couldn’t.

Regulus was staring back at him, his face twisted into a frown: maybe a panicked sadness.

“Sirius, where have Mummy and Daddy gone?”

“I don’t know, Reg, I don’t know!” Sirius turned to his brother, an unintentional snappiness in his voice. There were two armchairs, over by the fire, and a coffee table. They had left their wooden table by the bar behind.

Reg looked down. “Sorry,” he said.

The brothers sat in silence for several moments. Sirius had his eyes on the fire, licking, angry, and hot. Regulus was staring at his shoes.

“Sirius?” Came his little brother’s voice again.

“Yeah?” Sirius twisted his body to look at him.

“Think it scared me, Sirius. That night. Mummy scared me.”

Was this what he was not seeing?

“What did she say to you?” Sirius swallowed his grief, he was thinking of Harry, of a boy he didn’t really remember.

“Nothing.”

“What did you say?”

“No one.”

_No one?_

“What do you mean?”

“She took you away, an’ there was no one. Think they were gonna hurt you. An’ I told Alphie and... an’ he said he wasn’t going to leave me with no one, and, we went...”

His brother was mumbling now, barely audible. Sirius leaned in, his gaze troubled. His parents really tried to kill him, didn’t they? Back then, in 1966?

_So why was he here?_

“An’ Daddy was gone already...”

“Where do you think he is? Did he say he was going to go?”

“Daddy said he was gonna follow ‘Burga.”

“Mother,” said Sirius, carefully. Regulus nodded.

“He said she was gunna do somethin’ stupid, and then he said goodbye and then he left to go find you and to find her.” His brother’s tiny voice held as the pieces of the puzzle slowly came together.

_Slow down._

His own mother had tried to drown him, for whatever reason, during the storm in the 1960s. Then they lost each other, in the cold. Then their father went out on the flats to look for them, because he knew that their mother was planning something, maybe planning to drown Sirius. And then Alphard must have woken up, found out that the three of them had left the cottage, in the howling wind and rain, and went out to look himself, with Regulus.

And that’s when Alphard found him on the flats, screaming for help, half-submerged in mud already and trapped by the icy, imprisoning water. But where had their parents gone?

 

* * *

 

They sat in that pub for what seemed like another hour. Alphard still hadn’t come back. The barmaid brought them more juice and told them it was all going to be fine, in a garbled Scottish accent that neither of them understood very well. Sirius never got why his uncle wanted to live out here, in the torrential and untamed wilderness. Or why anyone did.

Sirius stared at his little brother as he stared at the fire, the flames reflected in his shining blue-grey eyes.

“Boys.”

What?

“Merlin.”

“Alphie!”

It was Alphard. He was in the frame of the pub doorway, looking drawn. Behind him was some other men, they were all standing there with grim looks.

“Alphiealphiealphiealphiealphie!” Regulus ran over and hugged his leg.

“Hey, Reg.”

“Did you find Mummy and Daddy?”

Sirius gazed at their uncle, rapt, but also worried. “Yes, Alphie, where...?” He wasn’t worried, who was he trying to fool? Sirius was, more than anything, unnerved. He was unnerved by this strange world.

Alphard smiled, but his smile was fake.

“We’ll talk about that a bit later, boys. But first, these people want to ask you some questions, hmm? Think you can do that?”

His brother looked at him. Sirius could tell that even though Regulus was young, he could easily spot Alphard’s game.

“Yeah,” Sirius said.

“Good,” said Alphard, carefully. “Just answer them, okay? As honestly as you can.”

And then the first muggle sat down- a wiry one, with a thick vest and a bobby hat. He started asking them both questions about the night of the storm- and, with a glance to Alphard every time Sirius answered, he could tell that _someone_ was dead. That, or still missing.

He told them hollowly about how his mother had taken him out on the flats, but he didn’t know why. The memories were restoring themselves as he explained, and the shock of it all started to catch up with him. He might have started to cry. Regulus told them about how he had seen their father go out onto the flats after getting back and realizing that his mother and brother were gone.

Sirius realized that these were muggles from the get-go, and didn’t mention magic, only that his mother had a torch. And that the wind had picked up and he didn’t know where she went after that, and he was stuck in the mud trying to scream.

The man with the vest was a portly, middle-aged, kindly gentleman who nodded as his younger assistant took notes on a pad of paper. Sirius told them how Alphard found him, in the howling wind, and how his mother was gone, and he didn’t see where she’d gone. At that point, Alphard took over, relaying the entire story of the cottage cellar and staying there until the winds have died down.

“Dae ye hae onie photographs ay their faither?A recent one?” The younger vested bloke piped up, after the story came to a close. Alphard’s eyes flickered to Sirius and to Regulus, and Sirius began to gather what was going on. Their mother was dead, and their father was probably missing. Their mother was the “wummin, floatin’ in the tide,” as that other Scottish muggle put it, earlier in the day.

“Yes, I have a book back at the cottage,” their Londoner uncle intoned, moving to get up. “Feel free to look around there as well, the damage was quite extensive from the storm, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, we’ll come an’ dae ‘at.” The younger vest said.

“We’ll meit ye in an hoor,” There was a third, who hadn’t spoken at all, but he was putting his pen back in his front pocket.

“Thenk yer wee jimmies fur all th’ help,” The older one who had asked all the questions said, nodding to Alphard, as they left the dingy fisherman pub.

Sirius didn’t catch a word that they had said.

Alphard got down in front of them. “Boys,” he said, quietly, “Boys, I have something to tell you.”

Sirius and Regulus didn’t say a word.

“Boys, your mother...” Alphard swallowed, “They found your mother. She was... she was... well, I’m afraid that... she drowned.”

At first, Sirius had nothing to say. Regulus’s stammer of “Wh-what?” seemed to fill the space enough. It must have been the shock of it all- first, he was in this world, second, he was confused, third, his mother was dead. Everything was confused, everything was on its head.

And then he began to feel the need to get out of there. It was suffocating him- Scotland, Skye, all of it. He hadn’t been back here since he climbed ashore from Azkaban. And that was a long way away. Before that, the last time he’d been here, he was a child.

And he was a child here.

“What about father?” Sirius dared to ask, afraid. He didn’t know where he was. Anything could have happened. He could be anywhere, in another world- maybe the Veil of _Death_ never led to the other side-

Alphard didn’t seem all that sad that his sister was dead, just grave. He was telling his boys, that might have been what made him look that way, but Sirius saw no sadness, no vacant expression. Not in those grey eyes.

“And I’m afraid your father’s gone missing,” said Alphard. His hands were clasped together in front of him.

Sirius looked over to his little brother, who looked as if his whole world had been lifted off his axis and thrown into space, with no direction, safety net, or light to guide him. The poor thing looked absolutely gutted. His head jerked, from Sirius to their uncle, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened.

“Boys,” Alphard said, reaching out for them, “I’m sorry.”

“B-but,” Reg stammered, “B-but, b-but Mum’s gone? Mummy?”

And then he started to cry. Sirius didn’t want to watch, he closed his eyes. _Think of something else. Anything else._

Wire glasses. Green eyes, brown eyes, where?

_James. Harry. Lily. Remus. Moony. Padfoot._

_Gods, where am I?_

“Sirius,” His uncle was bent down in front of him, he had moved off his seat. “Sirius, it’s alright to cry...”

Was he crying?

Maybe he was.

“But we’re gonna stay out here for a few days, just until the police are all done on our island,” Alphard _kept_ talking, kept _soothing_ him, _go away-_

“We’re gonna stay at the inn and I’m going to take you to hospital tonight and everything’s going to be alright,” Alphard was looking straight at him, “And then all the pain will go away. You won’t even feel it, promise.”

Sirius opened his eyes, just a little. “Promise?” He whispered, wanting to cry. He didn’t know what kind of pain Alphie was talking about, or where he was supposed to be feeling it. Everything felt like when Regulus died, everything hurt.

_You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead._


	2. Chapter 2

Sirius buttoned up his coat to his chin and stuffed his fists in his pockets, and walked the beaches, gazing. And thinking.

The wind was steely and chilling. The light here was shifting with an even more tantalizing swiftness, veils of rain and cloud concealed the mountain peaks, shyly, then he saw bright spears of sunlight, lancing, and slanted, and golden.

It was a traumatizing yet beautiful landscape. Islands and the mountains were reflected in dark indigo waters to his left. Bow-backed moorland across the loch stooped down to an echoing shoreline. A boat was drifting, alone. A plantation of firs was divided by a road that seemed to go nowhere- disappearing into those dark, sombre regiments, then blackness.

It was harsh, and daunting. Bright lozenges of orange winter sunset blazed on the farther hills, like organized fires, moving silently and very fast. The wind rustled among the branches, and in his ears. He smelled the sea.

The Black Cuillins were like a row of dementors in black hoods. Their shark-toothed peaks ripped at the heavy passing clouds, gutting them of rain. Yet still the clouds built and fell, in their endless and anguished turmoil, apparently without pattern.

But there was a pattern here. And if he stared long enough at the Black Cuillins across the waters of Eisort, he would understand it.

His mother, pushing him into the hurling rain. He remembered her touch on the flats and then when he turned around, it was gone. _She_ was gone. He remembered screaming. She was dead. His father was dead.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. And somehow, he felt the feeling that he already had been, but something went badly wrong. But what?

A big black dog. A sallow-faced, screaming woman in a portrait. But how did they fit in? And then there were these _names,_ _Harry James Lily Remus Moony Padfoot._

There were others, but as he dreamt he forgot them.

It was like grasping at smoke, there was no use.

His brother was back at the cottage. They had moved out for a while; the muggles had taken over the Alphard’s island more than a week ago. His uncle left them to it, shielding himself and Sirius and Regulus from the detectives and the aurors. They hid themselves instead inside the inn on the mainland at Broadford, staring at the shivering rowans beyond the big windows.

His mother’s body had been found by a fisherman, floating at the beach near Camuscross. The police said that she must have fallen in the mud and the darkness, and drowned.

It was too easily done. Too easily done. It was an accident, they said.

_But was it, truly? Why would she have done it? Gone out there when she knew it had to have been dangerous, even with a wand? Just to get rid of me, like she’s tried so often before?_

In reaction to these thoughts, he saw his own breath misting in the damp raw air. The rocky beach was bitterly cold, now that he’d stopped walking so aimlessly. It was so cold that even the lighthouse windows, high above his head were icing up.

He’d made it around the island, once or twice, it wasn’t big and so it wasn’t difficult to, by any means. But now, Sirius felt lost. The scene was just like it was out of his childhood- only why he kept thinking that he couldn’t say. He _was_ a child. He was Sirius Black and he was eight years old- or seven and-

The memories, though, the memories. If that was true, then where did they come from? _The pattern, find the pattern..._ He took in a mouthful of cool air, his ribs inflating with ice. He might have had the idea to use a warming charm-

_Where did that idea come from-_

Sirius was going mad. His mother was dead and he was going mad.

He plodded on through his walk. His wellington boots were sinking into the thick mud around the shore, the feeling of the brown glop slowly seeping through to his socks, although it wasn’t there.

_I have to find out why._

He gazed at the smears of the rain. The harshness of the outdoors was beckoning, and it greatly appealed to him. He looked once again at the mountains- something in him wanted to be out there in the wind and the cold, scrambling the cruel ridges of the Black Cuillins, getting battered by the winds up by the peaks that overlooked the old castle of Hogwarts School-

He wanted to be out there surviving, for Harry. He remembered a time when he’d been doing that much. He’d never been the outdoor type before, but he supposed he had to have been, at least while on the run.

 _Only I don’t remember._ Sirius closed his eyes, breathing in the salt-bitten air. And then he opened them. _I was on the run._

He stared at the thin crackles of rime. _I was running from-_

_No... no..._

And now the grief hit Sirius, like a blow to the back of his knees: as it often did. Like a Slytherin crashing into him while playing Quidditch, all at once. Making him crumple, and lean to the immovable fir for support, or the broom.

Harry, his Harry. The boy who looked just like his father. His young godson.

 _He’d loved him too,_ loved him just as much as James, as Lily. As Remus. But now Sirius was here, and alone, and so was Harry, in that other faraway world. _I fell through the veil..._

_Across the room Sirius saw Tonks fall from halfway up the stone steps, her limp form toppling from stone seat to stone seat, and Bellatrix, triumphant, running back toward the fray..._

Where are they? Sirius was despairing. _Where are my friends?_

He couldn’t think. He remembered now, and again.

_He met her in a dance, as they twisted and duelled above the dais, ducking and blocking spells just as often as they were throwing them._

But while he had originally felt despair, just now, it was just _now_ that he felt anger. He wanted to hurt his cousin for what happened. Punish her. Hurt her badly. Maybe even himself. Bellatrix was responsible for him being here and now that he was, he was alone and afraid. He had fallen through the Veil and he was now seeing what was on the other side. Except, it was all wrong. _Everything_ was wrong. James and Lily, if they were even here, were children. Like his little brother, they had no idea where he had come from, what awaited them.

_God._

Sirius shut his eyes, and opened them.

_They’re not here. I’m not there._

Those who were, they had been Reggie and Alphard and his mum and his dad, for a while. Only now his mother was gone, drowned, and his dad was missing. Was there another place to go, when you ran out of time in the Veil? Or did you just fade, like a soul not to be made to stick around forever, like you had just run out of time?

_Or maybe-_

No, he was dead, he was sure of it. How else would he have gotten to this other world? How else would he be here, in 1966, or what he _thought_ was 1966, because simply believing that time no longer ran here was terrifying, it was more than that, it was not what he wanted, he wanted to be back in _London_ with Harry, not stuck on a horrible island with his tiny little brother and his uncle who he’d seen for a while when he was little but then he just seemed to _disappear_ from Wizarding society- leaving him gold-

It was thanks to Alphard he’d been able to make it at seventeen, leaving the Potters, but they hadn’t spoken for years before that and Sirius always thought Alphard had done it because he hated his sister.

The same sister who blasted them both off the tapestry. The same sister who was lying in a _morgue,_ her lungs filled with fluid.

Who was left to disown him now?

Sirius almost wanted to laugh, but instead he strangled it.

He couldn’t. Not here.

“Sirius?” The sound of little Reg’s voice brought him to proper consciousness. Regulus was staring at him, head-tilted, eyes sad, and yet inquisitive. As if he could sense Sirius’s absurd and terrible thoughts.

Sirius looked to his brother. Calmed himself. And spoke:

“Yes? Reg?”

His brother took his hand, a bit smaller than his own but they still fit together like they always did. Always _had_. “Alphie sent me to find you, s’almost time for supper,” Reg’s voice was subdued, but he finished speaking before he attempted a shy smile and started pulling Sirius back toward the direction of the cottage. They had to go.

Sirius stared back at the crashing, slurping waves, one last time. Despairing.

* * *

Sirius stepped inside the cottage and kicked off his boots. Regulus had gone over to the table to read, and Sirius watched as his brother put his little hands under his chin. Regulus was slouching, looking at the picture book that he must have already left there. Sirius would have stopped to think what that slouching would mean in the eyes of their mother, but he couldn’t. _Because she was dead-_

He sat in the seat across from Regulus, to join him. He didn’t have a book of his own, but he looked back out through the window, past his brother’s head at the loch and its waves, lapping against the shore to a rhythm.

Alphard was preparing supper in the shadows of the kitchen, where he could see wire baskets, swinging overhead in the half-light, gently, as if someone had knocked them. Sirius could still hear the respiration of the sea from inside the cottage, it sounded like someone was doing exercises. There was a certain calmness, a stillness there.

The three of them ate, silently, after Alphard brought everything to the table. Alphard tugged Reg’s book away from him gently, encouraging him to eat what he just cooked the muggle way- Alphard was never very good at cooking spells. Sirius knew why, it was the same reason he never learned: his mother expected him to have a house-elf, or at least a wife to do all that. Alphard’s mother was the same woman as his mother’s own mother- and if Sirius were to speculate he would guess that Alphard’s mother- Alphard _and_ Walburga’s mother, had been just as bad as his own, as Walburga was. Because all children learn by example.

There was Cygnus, Alphard’s younger brother by two years, who’d learned to survive in the pureblood world, marrying Druella Rosier even though Sirius knew that they’d hated each other, at twenty, creating three perfect daughters in quick succession- Bellatrix, born first, in December 1951, then Andromeda, the middle child, the next December, and then Narcissa, who may have been a last-ditch attempt at a boy, in July 1955. And even though they couldn’t last because they couldn’t stand each other, Cygnus had fulfilled his duty as the spare, ensuring enough children so that the family could flourish in the extended line.

Just like Irma Crabbe had done for her family, she had married Pollux and had three children- the first, Walburga, in May 1925, who had ultimately been an accident,  _a scandal,_ and was the largest reason for their rush into marriage. Sirius knew his grandparents never loved each other because they married during their seventh year of Hogwarts. Irma had to learn to stay at home with the baby she never really wanted. But then four years later their families expected a boy, and so they had Alphard, in July 1929. And then Cygnus in October 1931. And Irma had three children she never really wanted, but at least their families were happy. Except Alphard was his parents’ heir, and he wanted nothing to do with the family.

Like Sirius.

Alphard hadn’t married, hadn’t wanted kids, because he was ill. Sirius would have maybe liked kids, in a different universe where he could marry someone he actually loved. Because love didn’t come as easy to him as it came to James, and as it came to Lily.

It was hard to explain. He’d never felt nor received it from anyone in his own family until he met his friends at school, who tried to replace them. It was a foreign concept to him until he went to live with the Potters.

His uncle Cygnus, at least, was lucky enough, healthy enough. If Cygnus hadn’t gone and married someone he hated, Alphard would have had to marry and produce a family. He knew that it wasn’t just because he was ill, it was because Alphard never wanted children on principle, he had bigger dreams than settling down in the family manor in Tisbury. Or maybe it was just because he wasn’t into witches. But Sirius never thought too hard about that, at least when he was still a part of the family, because he was so busy worrying about his own problems. Mainly surviving his own mother.

Sirius’s own mother was responsible for Regulus’s disease, just as her own mother was responsible for Alphard’s. His own mother was the oldest out of all of them, and entered a loveless marriage the same way as Cygnus had; only this time it was vital that they have boys, because the man she married was her second cousin, Orion, who was the heir to the male line. As was Sirius. As he’d always been. As he always knew that he was. And then Regulus had been born as the spare, as the failsafe that their parents never expected that they would have to use.

Sirius was the boy who everyone had a thousand expectations. Regulus had been allowed to do anything, partially because he  _was_ the spare and he _was_ ill and Sirius was _not_.

His mother could never expect anything of him, now. Or anything of any of them at all. It was a breath of relief, it was a new normalcy, it made him want to cry.

But then- _but then-_ there was still his father, hanging over his head. Part of Sirius just wished they would find his body already, as chaotic his feelings were. He wanted his father to be dead. If he was going to be in this world, still, he’d rather be with Alphard and Reggie. Just the three of them.

And maybe his friends if they ever came along.

“Something the matter, Sirius?” His uncle was just as good at detecting Sirius’s foul moods as his little brother was. Right now, all Sirius wanted to do was lock himself in the bedroom upstairs and be by himself, but tonight he was, unfortunately, looking forward to sharing another night on the living room carpet with Reg.

Alphard didn’t tell them much, but Sirius _did_ know his uncle was looking for something more permanent, a better solution. If both of their parents were really gone, that was. Alphard would be the one taking care of them, instead of their father’s sister, their Aunt Lucretia, who lived in a big old house, also unmarried, in Somerset. He would be the one taking care of them instead of their divorced uncle Cygnus. Because he was already Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Cissy’s father.

Sirius and Regulus hadn’t exactly made it very clear who they wanted to live with, in their present situation, but Alphard had promised them that he would make sure that they could. He had _promised._

When Sirius was a teenager he’d actually dreamed of this. Quite often. Coming to live with Alphard in the wilderness. Far away from his screeching mother and demeaning grandparents, aunts, and cousins. But it was different now, because- because no, that can’t be right, _wait. Your name is Sirius Black and you are eight years old,_ he wanted to bang his head against something hard.

He still hadn’t answered Alphard.

“No,” he quickly lied, but there was such a delay in that answer, Sirius was sure Alphard would press further. He wasn’t entirely sure of what question he’d just answered.

Alphard had just asked him if he was okay.

He was not. He was exhausted and confused that he had the thought of jumping off an Astronomy Tower he’d never seen.

He blinked and looked at Alphard. His uncle was sitting across from them, across from Regulus, who hadn’t touched much of his plate and kept reaching for his picture book but Alphard kept having to redirect him. Gently, not quite as impatient as their father would have.

“Sirius,” Alphard’s eyes were tired, all of a sudden calm, but with sharp edges. “Sirius, son, I really wish you would stop lying to me.”

“I’m not lying,” Sirius kept his gaze down but his eyes were watery. _Damnit._ He rubbed at them.

“Sirius,” Alphard said gently. Regulus was watching him quietly from the side. His brother must have gotten up from his chair, or pushed his plate to the side, because he was suddenly wrapping his tiny arms around Sirius, and as small as he was they still fit around Sirius perfectly.

“It’s alright to be sad, son,” comforted Alphie, reaching across the table to rest his big hand on Sirius’s arm, as he cried into his little brother’s shoulder.

_Stop stop stop._

_Nothing was alright._

* * *

Alphard had called the Aurors and they were coming _tomorrow_ , to collect his sister’s body from the muggles in Broadford. They were going to ask Sirius and Regulus some more questions. _They were coming tomorrow._

Sirius watched, his eyes empty, as his uncle cleared up the plates from the meal that none of them had really eaten. Regulus had gone back to reading his picture book, which was previously unrecognizable to Sirius but knew the book now as a little Scottish kid’s version of  _Faerie Tales from the British Isles._ It must have been a gift from Alphard, perhaps he’d found it in a shop in the muggle district of Portree. He had a faint shape memory of reading something like that to Harry, all those years ago, when Lily and James were in hiding. Some muggle book, anyway.

But Reg soon got bored of the book, or couldn’t concentrate, whichever came first, and wandered into the kitchen to talk to Alphard. Sirius could hear his kidlike, warbling voice from the table.

“Alphie?” Reg was asking, wary. “Alphie, could I-”

There was a moment of silence where Sirius could imagine his brother frowning and swallowing, thinking of what to say because he was a bit slow sometimes.

“How come Mummy drowned?”

“What?” Alphard’s voice had an unfamiliar edge to it, and it was far away, too.

“How come?” Reg asked again.

Alphard let out a small, tired sigh. “How d’you mean, Reg?”

“Well, witches always _float,_ ” Reg’s voice said, imploring. “It’s what my book says, the story about- the- I forgot but that's what it says. And you said something too, when- when we came up t’see you in the summertime. You said our magic would save us if we ever fell on the flats... when I wouldn't go swimming with Sirius...”

At first, Alphard said nothing.

“Reggie, I...” His response was delayed. “When your...your mother said that, she must have only been talking about the magic that you do when you’re frightened, the kind that you can’t control. It doesn’t always work for grown-ups like it does for children. She drowned, and that’s what the police said. I’m sorry, Reg, but your mother is truly gone. Really truly.” His uncle didn’t sound very sad, like Sirius would have expected him to.

“Is that why Siri- is that why Siri-” Regulus just kept asking questions, but this time he fell silent. This time, there was no answer, and his little brother seemed less sure of himself.

Sirius had to be sure. He had an inkling of what Regulus was asking, he was asking why  _Sirius survived_ and their mother fell walking back, why their father had probably been drowned too, if he hadn’t killed Walburga first.

He had to be sure.

Sirius got up slowly, and followed the voices into the kitchen, but just to the doorway. He stared up at his uncle, next to his little brother. Their uncle’s back was facing them as he methodically wiped off the dishes, one by one, all without magic; he was gazing at the dark kitchen window- the kitchen that faced landwards, over the tidal flats, towards the line of low bald hills behind the old pub, a horizon of deepest blue against the stars and darkness.

But Sirius could also see Alphard’s face, reflected in the window glass by the kitchen lights. Alphard hadn’t realized this. And Sirius saw intense anger on that chiselled face: a twisting, suppressed rage.

Why?

He caught Sirius looking at him, and the anger disappeared. It was hidden away very quickly. He then set a mug to dry on a rack and he turned, plucking a tea towel, carefully drying his fingers of the suds.

He spoke at last. “Boys,” He said, his voice unexpectedly soft. “Boys, I’ve got to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Sirius asked immediately, wary.

“I should have said something before,” Alphard said, his eyes hard and distant. “The muggles... they, well- come back into the sitting room with me, will you?”

Sirius and Regulus shuffled after their uncle Alphard and into the room they’d been sleeping in for the last three weeks. They must have made a blanket fort on the floor, although Sirius didn’t remember doing it, it must have been before the night of the storm.

Alphard sat them both down on the sofa. “Boys,” Alphard’s eyes were back to a gentle gaze, as he looked at them. “Boys, before I tell you this- I have something very important to ask you. Did your-”

Their uncle swallowed. “Did your mother ever- did she ever do anything to make you feel afraid? Or, or unsafe? Something that hurt, maybe? Or something scary?”

Sirius looked to Regulus and Regulus looked to Sirius. His little brother’s expression was the same, nervous, with a flicker of embarrassment. Same as before, from the pub across the loch. _Why is that?_

Sirius looked down at the floor, not wanting to look at his uncle, but Regulus had already nodded and it was much too late.

Regulus had given yet another careful nod, just to be sure. The first had looked rather hesitant. Alphard nodded back the second time, but out of wariness. “Okay,” he said, carefully, and faintly, “Boys, this is very important. You have to tell the truth.” He was swallowing his fury, and his grief, and his anxiety, together. “Sirius, can you look at me?”

Sirius refused.

“Sirius,” Alphard’s voice had the slightest bit of warning to it.

Sirius didn’t care. He looked to the side, entirely away from his uncle, at the fireplace, which held the tiniest of glowing embers. He felt as if Alphard was going to let it die, but they would need it tonight. At least, he’d like it tonight.

“Sirius-”

An uncomfortable sort of silence fell upon them. But Alphard still had something to say. He continued to talk and Sirius just wanted him to _go away_.

“Reg, then. Did your mother do something last week that made you feel upset? And scared?”

Regulus paused. Then nodded. “Yes, Alphie.”

“You’re sure?” Alphard’s eyes flickered over to Sirius, who was looking at his shoes.

Sirius gave a small shrug, not wanting to look at him. He didn’t want to see the anger in Alphard’s face.

“Sirius?” Alphard leaned forward and had hold of both of his wrists, but it wasn’t harsh or making him flinch away. “Sirius, this is important.”

Sirius finally looked up, into his face, but found no intense anger there, no twisted, suppressed rage. Instead, Alphard was looking at them like he was about to cry.

Sirius’s eyes flickered downward one last time before he swallowed and drew in a shaky breath.

He didn’t know if he could say it.

He started with vague.

“She told me to come with her in the dark?” Sirius faltered, “I didn’t, I didn’t _want_ to go but she said, she said it was okay because she had her wand...”

“Did she say where she was taking you?” His uncle asked.

Sirius looked up at him and shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

His eyes flickered to Regulus. Maybe he shouldn’t say what he was going to say in front of his little brother, but there wasn’t much more he could do. Alphard deserved to know what his sister had done.

“She pushed me,” Sirius swallowed, “She pushed me into the mud, and held me d-down... I couldn’t, I couldn’t scream... I think she must have fallen walking back... _I t-tried- I’m sorry-_ ”

It was the first time Alphard’s eyes had come close to tears, regarding Sirius’s mother. Sirius didn’t want to look at him, he didn’t want to see his uncle cry, he was always so strong. He had been so strong.

Sirius was crying, though, too.

* * *

 That night, the floorboards were scratchy and cold on Sirius’s socked feet. He walked to the window. The full moon was high over the Isles. It was a chilly night in early winter. It should have been beautiful. _And it was beautiful._ This place, this _cottage_ , this _island_ , was forever relentlessly beautiful, it never ever stopped. Whatever else was happening there, the beauty persisted, like a terrible nightmare.

Sirius walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, because he was hungry.

He made himself toast. And sat at the dining table. Munching mechanically, fuelling himself. Staring at the hearth. Thinking about Remus, because of the moon, and Harry, because he wasn’t there.

Later, he was sitting in the living room. His little brother was sleeping on the floor, his favourite blanket tucked underneath his arm. Sirius was looking out at the rain. It was raining, it was always raining, here. He used to like the rain sweeping up the Sound from the Point of Sleat. It made everything, somehow, into a sad Gaelic song: liquid and soft, lyrical yet indecipherable; the landscape was like a beautiful, disappearing language.

Now the rain just irked him.

He looked further and he could see a boat puttering up the way to Loch na Dal, towards the white-painted hunting lodge: Kinloch. Where the Macdonalds lived: the Macdonalds of Macdonald, Lords of the Isles since the year 1200, so Alphard said. He wondered if Mary was there, or if she was somewhere else, warm in her own bed. Her grandparents could have owned that place, or even her parents. But perhaps not. Although, the world was quite smaller than some would like it to be.

He needed to distract himself. Looking at the world outside, which had worked at Grimmauld Place, at least until Snape would say something asinine, busied him enough. Cleaning, too. But there was always that anger there.

He needed to forget, because he had just remembered.

Distraction, now.

He looked back at the living room. Regulus was asleep, tucked under the blanket canopy, with Scottish moonlight flooding the room. He looked relaxed and just as small, even in his sleep.

His black hair was tousled; Sirius preferred his brother’s hair like this, slightly wild. He liked his own just the same. But seeing his brother again, like _this,_ was more than just a gift, it was a blessing.

How many times had Sirius watched his brother sleep, when they were younger? When they grew apart, Sirius never saw him look so peaceful again. He remembered that sometime around Regulus’s fifth year, he started to tie it up in a way that resembled their father’s. Even though Regulus’s face was too soft, and his features too gentle, so he couldn’t resemble him much. Though as he tried.

His brother was a child, in this horrible world. He was everything Sirius remembered him to be, until he left him.

It could have almost been another chance. Another chance in another past. To nurture his brother, to save him, but Sirius couldn’t figure out why the year 1966 was so important. Was it a diverging point? Had Sirius lost his brother, even this early on?

Or maybe nothing mattered. Perhaps he could convince himself, over time, that it was. But he didn’t know the whole of it, and he didn’t understand everything, but there _was_ a strangeness, in this world. Everything seemed right but everything also seemed off.

And Sirius hadn’t yet seen the world he’d stumbled across, when he fell through the veil. He knew that more was out there, more _had to be out there,_ because the _whole world_ was not the Isles, the _whole world_ was not Scotland.

Maybe James and Lily were out there.

_Maybe his task was to escape the island._

Maybe it was a test.

_Maybe he’d have to choose between them and his family..._

Was it really them or Regulus? Regulus or them? Maybe it was because he’d gone wrong the first time. Could he have gotten it wrong? Was he trapped here because he did?

He looked from his sleeping brother to the window and to the moon, high above the Cuillins.

This was stupid. He was getting lost in these reflections, this labyrinth of darkened glass. He should be focused on _getting back,_ if that was even possible, _Harry needed him-_

But he had no idea how, or where he was, or if this was the past, or if this was another chance. He would have to wait this out, somehow.

He hated the waiting bit.

* * *

Another day passed. The aurors came and went. They had found nothing concrete, nothing to do with his brother-in-law or anything to do with his body. And his sister’s body was released to him, but he had it sent off to Somerset because Alphard himself couldn't bear to look at it.

And now he had another task in front of him. Alphard checked his watch: eleven a.m. In six hours, he would have to meet his estranged brother in Broadford, and then tell him that their sister likely tried to drown her eldest child out on the mudflats just a few days ago. How would he react? Would Cygnus even believe him?

Alphard stepped out of the kitchen onto the cracked paving stones and looked east, at the chalky pillar of the lighthouse, with the sea, and the snow-covered Black Cuillin mountains beyond. For some reason the sight- the mere existence- of the lighthouse always comforted him. A calming beacon, serene and aloof. Flickering every nine seconds at night.

He could see Regulus, he was solitary, playing down there in his new blue wellingtons, wading in the rock pools, looking for little fish and pulsing urchins. Regulus turned and looked at him, then he ran up the incline of salty grass to the kitchen, to show Alphard some shells he has collected.

“Hey, very nice.”

“Can I show them to Siri?”

“Of course you can, Regulus. Of course.”

The shells were wet and sandy and graciously freckled with blue striations, fading to yellow and cream. Alphard took out his wand and washed the grit from them, and then for good measure rinsed them under the uncertain spatter of the tap, and handed them back.

“Now go show Sirius,” Alphard said, “I think he was upstairs.”

Regulus handed him his boots and disappeared happily to the upstairs bedroom. In the silence, Alphard made lunch to dispel his thoughts.

The time passed without terrors. It was four-thirty p.m., and dusk was upon them when Alphard peered his head around the door to his own room, finding Sirius sitting on his own bed and Regulus on the floor with a book. They spent a lot of time up here, in the bedroom, having almost taken it over, when the aurors had been downstairs yesterday.

Although Sirius had hovered, gazing at the two men who had come to investigate any places the Black family owned that Orion might have gone, if he had run that night. While Alphard had been busy with them Sirius had been unusually quiet, appearing occasionally in the doorway and disappearing back upstairs as if he couldn’t figure out what to do with himself.

After lunch, when Alphard asked them if they wanted to come get Cygnus from the pub at Broadford with him, they both sat there, silent. Regulus had shaken his head of couse, but neither of them said anything.

“But Uncle Cygnus wants to see you,” Alphard said, lying, because he didn’t know if their uncle cared to see them or not.

“No,” said Sirius, at once. “Don’t want to.”

“Sirius. Why not?”

“Just not. Not now.”

“Regulus, then? Do you want to come, Reg?”

Regulus shook his head and re-buried his head in his book. “No,” he mumbled.

“But Regulus, you’ll be alone on the island,” pushed Alphard.

Regulus shook his head. “Don’t mind! Siri’ll be here, anyway...”

Alphard had no desire to fight his nephews that afternoon. He had too much to worry about confronting the rest of the family, the first of which being Cygnus. And there was no reason why either of them wouldn’t be safe on the island, as long as neither of them strayed. It was an _island_. The tide was out. He’d only be gone for thirty minutes. Sirius was seven and he could sit safely in a house on his own, and watch his brother.

“Okay,” nodded Alphard. “Come here, then. Just promise to stay in the bedroom, alright?”

Sirius got up and moved closer to him. Alphard caught him in a hug, and Sirius, surprised, hugged him back, but not as tightly. “Take care of Regulus,” Alphard said. “I’ll only be gone a half-hour, alright?”

Sirius nodded, obediently, and settled back on the bed with one of Alphard’s old storybooks.

The darkness had gathered itself, and it surrounded the island. Alphard lit his wand and followed the path, down to the shingled beach by the lighthouse, where he dragged the boat off the grassy rocks. Unslipping the ropes, he hauled the deadweight of the anchor aboard, as if it was a small body he was hoping to jettison, into the concealing waters of the Sound.

The night was clear and calm and the light from his wand was unnecessary, the moon was ripe and bright, leftover from the full moon the day before last, giving the waters a luminescence.

And there he was: his brother waited on the Broadford pier, with the lights of the pub behind. Cygnus looked the perfect picture of an imposing Pureblood male, with his face cold and blank, giving nothing away.

But as he went down the stairs and stepped into the dinghy, he nodded, in acknowledgement. He smelled of whisky but not too much. Perhaps he’d had a quick warming glass in the pub.

“How’s Regulus and Sirius?”

“They’re...”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The muggle motor sliced the cold, black, moonlit waters, as Alphard steered them around Salmadair. The large house of the Macdonalds was dark and empty. The black fir trees defended it, in their legions.

“Alphard?”

The boat was hauled safe above the bladderwrack. The moonlight guided them to the cottage. Regulus must have heard them and ran out from the house to show Cygnus the shells he found, and his brother cupped them in his hands and said, “Hello, Reg. These are really lovely. Thank you.”

Alphard watched him with Regulus and was pleasantly surprised. He knew that Cygnus had the tendency to be quite sharp with his girls, as Walburga was with her sons, but Alphard knew that Cygnus had always longed for a boy.

Regulus shifted on his two feet and then ran back up the stairs. Cygnus didn’t ask after Sirius, and Alphard directed him to the dining room.

They sat at the dining table and Alphard made them both tea. His brother was very silent. As if he was expected something big. Did he already suspect? Surely not.

As calm as Alphard could, he pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite. And he said: “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Okay.”

Alphard’s breathing was deep, but even. He continued, “You understand by now that our sister is dead?”

He waited for confirmation from his younger brother before continuing on, in a feverish sort of haze.

“That night- the night of the storm. She tried to- well. The reason that she went out on the mudflats that night was that she wanted to drown our nephew. Sirius,” he added, when Cygnus opened his mouth to say as if, _which one_ , “Never mind that Orion went out to stop her. I’m ignoring that until we are made aware of what happened to him. But that night of the storm, I found Sirius half-submerged in the mud. She’d taken him out there and _left_ him. She tried to kill him, Cygnus.”

Cygnus said nothing. He sipped his tea, his dark blue eyes fixed on Alphard’s. Not blinking. But fierce. Like a predator, watching.

Alphard felt a sudden sense of peril. Of being menaced, as was so common in their younger years. Even though Cygnus had been younger, he had always been _stronger._ He remembered their childhood games almost too well. His childhood stammer momentarily returned.

“I sh- I sh-”

“Alphard. Slow down.” He glared. Dark, and brooding. “Tell me everything.”

“Regulus, he told me that Walburga had left the cottage with Sirius, the night of the storm, and it had already gotten so bad out. Orion had gone to look for her. Only I couldn’t figure out why she would leave Regulus with me and take Sirius away, to the mainland. I thought she may have tried to apparate, in the storm, but Orion said that she must have attempted to walk across the flats, you know they’re dangerously slippery, fatally so. That was the last time I saw him. The Aurors haven’t found anything either, if he drowned the same way as her.”

“And I- and the wind was howling and I panicked, I couldn’t leave Regulus alone in the cottage while I went to look for Sirius, too,” Alphard admitted. The guilt was getting to him. He hurried on, “So I took him with me, kept him on my back. And I heard someone screaming- it was Sirius. I followed the voice as best I could, and I found him out in the middle of the flats. I pulled him out, and if I hadn’t gotten there, he would have drowned. Walburga did it, she must have taken him out there knowing he’d get stuck, and she must have drowned herself walking back. I never saw either of them.”

Cygnus’s frown had deepened.

Alphard continued on, “And so I went back to the cottage, with the boys, and we waited out the storm. When the skies cleared, I did my best to repair the cottage and then I brought them to the mainland to look for their parents.”

Cygnus sipped his hot tea again. Alphard wished he would have responded normally. Or in any way. Maybe cry. Shout. _Do something_. React badly.

But all Alphard got was that menacing stare. His brother swallowed more tea and said: “Your letter said that the muggles found her.”

“Yes-” Alphard nodded. “I went down to Camuscross, like the bloke at the pub told me to do, they’d been working down there and I- I knew who she was the moment I saw her- th- th- she was there.”

“Okay,” Cygnus said. “Slow down, Alphard. What else?”

His brother had wrapped his hands around his mug. Tight. Alphard watched him take another gulp, his eyes never leaving his own.

“Tell me, Alphard. Tell me everything.”

He was correct, he needed to know _everything;_ and so, like someone purging a night of alcohol, Alphard chucked it all up. Voiding himself of lies and evasions, redeeming himself with the truth. He told his brother about Walburga, Orion, and all the boys’ visits to Skye, and the weeks of strangeness, the way his nephews avoided human contact and flinched every time Alphard came up behind them unexpectedly. He told him about the way that Walburga had been acting, in the lead-up to the storm, perfectly calm on some days and on others, low arguments with Orion that Alphard could always hear while he was out with Sirius and Regulus on the beach, and how it convinced him, for a moment, that he was wrong, but then the doubts crept back. And how he’d let it slip past him, that Walburga had taken her son out onto the flats and left him there to die.

Cygnus still said nothing, while he spoke. But his grip on his mug was so hard that Alphard could see the straining whiteness of his knuckles. As if he was going to pick it up and smash it in Alphard’s face. He was angry and he was going to be violent. He was scared yet not scared. Cygnus was going to hit him, or shake him, or curse him- Alphard was telling Cygnus that his own beloved sister was an abusive mother and that she tried to kill her son, that her drowning was no accident.

But Alphard didn’t care, he had to say it.

“Orion tried to stop her, but she went out and she did it anyway. She tried to kill Sirius. She tried to kill _her own son, our nephew_ -”

 _Here it comes._ His reaction. Cygnus drained the last of his tea. He put the mug down on the dusty table. The moon was white and horrified outside. Alphard could see her through the windows. Gawping.

At last, he spoke.

“I knew Walburga was abusing them, but-”

Alphard gazed his way. Stunned into muteness.

Cygnus shrugged at his brother’s bewilderment. Yet he was also tensed, and muscled. Then, he said, “The abuse, anyway. I’ve known for a while.”

Alphard was dumbed. His brother sighed, loudly, and stood. And walked into the kitchen. Pans and plates were rattling in the sink.

From somewhere Alphard found the energy to respond. He went into the kitchen, where Cygnus had his wand out and was instructing the dishes to wash themselves, under the spatter water of the tap in the big ceramic sink. The sink’s water coughed forth, belching and uncertain, like rain from a storm, overflowing. Cygnus’s magic rinsed and cleaned the mugs. Obsessively.

In Alphard’s own _house._

He spoke at last.

“About six months ago...” His brother paused, and the dishes rearranged themselves as they flew into their cupboards. He looked up again. “Cissy’s birthday party, you weren’t there, _obviously_ , even though you were invited. Sirius came to me and told me what he probably told you. That his mother frightened him, made him feel unsafe. And I asked him why but-”

Cygnus glanced at Alphard again. “He didn’t say anything too specific. Only that he didn’t like how she pushed Regulus around when he’d never done anything bad.”

“Anything else?” Alphard said, quietly.

“No,” said Cygnus. “Just- I _asked_ Sirius, what sort of way Walburga punished him when he disobeyed her. He wouldn’t say anything at first. But then he brought up something about being hungry, probably to distract me, and then I remembered how he and Regulus were afraid to eat anything unless I _made_ them, when they came to stay in the spring, with me. It was like they were used to having food in front of them but not being allowed to eat it- so I didn’t ask him anything else. I helped him get a snack and then he went off to play.”

“She was starving them as well?” Alphard asked. “And you- _you knew?_ ”

Alphard’s brother leaned back, his hands on the edge of the sink, as he faced him. Defiant, or maybe contemptuously.

“I didn’t know for _sure_ ,” Cygnus insisted, glowering. “She- well- I got her drunk that night just to ask her. The only thing she had to say about them was that they _were so very disappointing_ , and that my daughters were so much more well-behaved. It sounds like she punishes them-”

Cygnus swallowed, correcting himself. “It sounded like she _punished_ them, a lot. But she didn’t think it was abuse, you know Wally, sometimes she can just- she can go too far. She’s got anger. She _had_ anger. I- I didn’t exactly _know,_ but I suspected. I just- I feel so  _stupid._ ”

His eyes were hard and he was speaking to the floor, not to Alphard himself.

Then there was silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me _then?"_  Came Alphard’s voice, he’d managed to find it somewhere.

And then Cygnus _mumbled._

“Didn’t want to upset you. Wasn’t sure.”

“That’s it? That’s your reason?” And then it was Alphard’s chance to raise his voice, to menace _his_ little brother.

But then the tables turned right over, as they always did.

“What else? What did you want me to do, Alphard?” Cygnus was glaring at him, shouting before Alphard could quite blink- “Alphard, _come on._ She was our  _sister,_ our fucking sister. Was I really going to slope up to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and say, Oh, by the way, I think my sister abuses her sons and I think she should be locked up in _Azkaban?_ Or St. Mungo’s? Come on, Alphard. Really? Was I really going to do that? I _could_ have helped them then, when I had that first suspicion, but I didn’t. I’m _sorry._ ”

“They suffered,” whispered Alphard.

Cygnus’s angry expression had faded away to something else. “Just as we did,” Cygnus said, keeping the distance wide between them.

“But Cygnus, they _suffered..._ ” Alphard had let go of everything. There was nothing holding his own tears back anymore. He dropped into a seat at the kitchen table, wiping them away.“And it all had to end with her- with _him-_ with them-” His own voice was hollow. He didn’t recognise it.

“I thought that they’d survive,” repeated Cygnus, “Just as we did.”  

Alphard couldn’t say anything to him, not anymore. Not after that.

“Alphard, I’m _sorry,_ ” He said.

Cygnus swallowed emotion. He didn’t have a scowl on his face, but it wasn’t quite a smile, either. Cygnus shook his head, and, as he did, Alphard could see a glisten in his eyes, the wetness of emotion. Not tears, but close.


End file.
